


Bron-Yr-Aur

by mrbluesky



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coming Out, Episode: s14e07 Unhuman Nature, Fishing, Gay Dean Winchester, Gay Jack Kline, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:26:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28225335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrbluesky/pseuds/mrbluesky
Summary: It’s after the hospital, and Rowena’s lay-on-hands routine at the bunker; after the burgers and the half-thought-out driving lesson; it’s after they’ve managed a steady rumble down the Kansas highway,Physical Graffitisettled in the tape deck, when Dean’s bone-deep discomfort starts to set in again.(Or, missing scene(s) from 14x07, "Unhuman Nature." Also known as "wtf gay little jack")
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jack Kline & Dean Winchester
Comments: 121
Kudos: 1094





	Bron-Yr-Aur

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is loosely based on my own experiences.

It’s after the hospital, and Rowena’s lay-on-hands routine at the bunker; after the burgers and the half-thought-out driving lesson (he’d considered the possibility before, of giving the kid a go at the Impala—he didn’t want Jack to end up like Cas, after all, wrecking car after useless car for years on end—he just didn’t think it would happen quite so soon); it’s after they’ve managed a steady rumble down the Kansas highway, _Physical Graffiti_ settled in the tape deck, when Dean’s bone-deep discomfort starts to set in again. 

Jack doesn’t seem to notice, not until Dean starts tapping his finger just a little too loud to Plant’s crooning— _Well, well, well, so I can die easy—_ with his elbow resting heavy just outside the open window. Jack’s eyes drift over to the passenger seat, then, but he quickly twitches his head back, eyes ahead, like he’s scared to take his eyes off the road for too long. Good.

Dean shifts his weight. Jack never did tell him where he wanted them to go. Said he wanted it to be a surprise. He taps his finger a few more times, then turns the volume down, so the song’s words are near unintelligible under the rumble of Baby’s engine. “You sure you don’t wanna hit up a bar or something? I bet some college girls would dig the whole,” he gestures with his left hand, “wounded puppy thing you’ve got goin’ right now.” He winces as soon as the words leave his mouth. Shit.

The kid’s dying. 

Dean glances out the open window. Swallows away a thick feeling in his throat, or tries to. Those kinds of jokes just don’t fly, not in moments like this. Not with Jack looking like a stiff breeze would blow him over, vulnerability resting on his shoulders like a thick fog. Hell, that’s the reason he’s doing the whole last-night-on-earth song and dance in the first place.

And now. Well, now Dean can’t help but think of another time he’d done this, or something like it, with another then-virginal celestial being—what was it, nearly nine years ago, now? More? God, it feels like a lifetime ago, that apocalypse; all seal-breaking and horsemen-tracking, never mind the whole quest-for-God thing. Cas’ eyes come swimming up in Dean’s mind now, so obviously scared (not that Dean did anything about that at the time; looking back on it now, though, that look couldn’t have been anything short of pleading) in that quote-unquote _den of iniquity_. Christ. He was such an asshole.

Still is, clearly.

Jack just shakes his head and hums, still staring hard at the road. “No, Dean, it’s really alright. Besides, that’s not what I want to do with the time I have.”

Dean turns to look straight at the road, too. Nods once. Alright. If the kid knows what he wants, then he knows—

“And besides,” Jack continues calmly, “I don’t know if I like girls, anyway.”

At that, Dean turns and stares at the side of Jack’s head.

After a moment, Jack's face changes a little under Dean’s gaze, into a look of vague confusion, and Dean realizes he’s been staring a beat too long. 

The gears slowly start to turn in Dean’s head again. Okay. “So, you...” Dean clears his throat when his voice rusts over. “So, you like, uh. You like. Uh, guys then? Boys? Not girls?”

Jack keeps staring at the road, silent for a few moments. Dean’s neck starts to heat up, under his collar. _Shit._ He rubs a hand on his thigh, palm clammed-up and dragging down denim. _Is that the right way to ask? Are you even—are you supposed to just up and ask them? Shit. Shit shit shit—_

Jack hums, then. “I don’t know.” Tilts his head. “I didn’t know you could do that. If you’re a boy, I mean.”

Dean keeps staring, almost frozen. After a few seconds, Jack looks away from the road toward Dean, a confused little wrinkle deepening between his eyebrows. _Shit_. Dean’s gonna have to explain—he’s gonna have to—

_(He looks so much like him—)_

He takes a deep breath. He can’t afford to fuck this up for the kid. Dean rolls up the passenger side window, leaving it cracked, and gestures for Jack to do the same on his side, dampening the noise in the car.

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah. I mean, yes.” Tries to put as much affirmation as he can into the words. “There are men who like—who—have sex with—it’s called, uh. Okay, it’s hard to explain.” He looks down and flexes his fingers where they rest on his thighs. “Okay. Not that hard.” He clears his throat, again. “So, there are men who like—love—women, and men who love men. And there are women who love women, too. And men who love men and women, and women who love women and men, sometimes. And that’s—”

He stops himself there, looks back over at Jack, who turned to face the road again but still has that confused dip in his brow. 

“Okay,” Dean says, and tries to collect his thoughts. For once. “Okay, so most people in the world are attracted to the opposite sex, right? That’s probably why you didn’t know. It’s kinda, like, the norm, or something. That’s called being straight. It’s kinda assumed that when you meet someone, they’re straight. Because people think it’s more, uh, normal. Or whatever.”

Dean scratches the back of his neck, now more than a little damp with sweat. With his other hand he turns up the Impala’s finicky A/C, and it rattles to reluctant life. Gotta fix that. “Then there’s, like—if you’re a guy who’s attracted to guys, or a girl who’s attracted to girls—if you like the same sex—or gender, or whatever—you’re, uh—it’s called being gay.” He takes a deep breath. “And it’s not what most people assume, unless, like, you’re really putting some signals out there, ‘cause you can’t—” He pauses for a beat, as a series of memories flash through his head (a knowing look from a man across the bar, accompanied by a raised glass and a flash of teeth; a motel clerk eyeing him and his brother—his _brother_ , for Christ’s sake—but lingering on Dean, when they ask how many beds they want), “I mean, you can’t tell just by looking at someone—”

“What gender they fall in love with,” Jack finishes, nodding thoughtfully.

Dean drops his hands back on his thighs where they rest, heavy. “Yeah. Or, you know. Who they wanna bang. Or whatever.” He rubs a hand over his chin and gestures at the road. “And, y’know, sometimes people go for both, like I was saying before. Or, y’know, anyone. ‘S called bisexual.” The word feels foreign in his mouth, over-enunciated. He looks out the passenger side window. “And, y’know, like I said, being straight’s kinda the norm, which is why people usually assume when you meet someone that they’re—y’know. Straight.” 

“And you assumed I was ‘straight.’” Jack says the word like it has air quotes around it.

Dean shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry. About that, I guess.” He cringes at the repetition. There’s a brief beat of silence, then Dean lets out a deep breath. “So—”

Jack interrupts him. “But... I assumed I was straight, too. With Harper, I mean. I didn’t even _know_ that there were other things—other things to _be_. I didn’t even think she was... I mean, she was a very pretty girl, I think, but I wasn’t—I don’t _think_ I was attracted—I don’t—”

He turns away from the road briefly to look at Dean again, and—Shit. Dean’s stunned suddenly speechless, because staring back at him now is the same set of eyes that he saw in that brothel nine or so years back. Yep, definitely pleading. _Shit._

“Hey, hey, kid. It’s alright.” Dean puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezes—reassuringly, he hopes. “It’s all good. You don’t need to know everything right now. You don’t need to know _anything_ right now. It takes most people years to figure their shit out. Hell, it takes some people a lifetime.” Dean faces forward again, staring hard at the white lines as they flash by under the body of the car. He pats Jack’s shoulder again, then leaves his hand resting there, firm. “Sorry if I pushed you.”

Jack looks over again, eyes shining now, brow smoothed out and wrinkle-free. “That’s okay, Dean. Thank you for explaining.”

He gives Dean a bright smile, one that shows off the gap in his teeth, front and center, _best day ever_ all over again. Dean’s heart does something stupid, then, at the full force of that smile. 

It does that sometimes, at these sorts of moments, his heart; clenches in on itself when Jack says something that makes him feel—unbelievably—like a father.

He never thought he’d ever get that feeling again. Not after—well, not after Sam, not for a long time, but especially not after Ben. With Ben, those moments were few and far between; the kid already had a sense of who he was, what it meant to be a person, when Dean came back into his life, thanks to Lisa. She raised a hell of a kid, and Dean just got to—be there. To bear witness. 

Sam, on the other hand. Dean remembers exactly what it felt like to raise Sam. It was the only real home he had for a long, long time, taking care of Sammy. Cooking for Sam, stealing for Sam, putting his neck on the line with Dad, for Sam—that was home, for Dean. He gave a lot so Sam could get even just a little, he knows that, and he’d do it all again to see Sam become the man he is today. He watched as Sam grew from a blob of a little brother gurgling in his arms, to a twerp of a little brother who could think for himself, to a giant of a little brother who could make his own decisions—even if it meant leaving Dean. But all that time, Dean was growing into himself, too. 

It’s different, with Jack. Dean’s grown, now. He’s as fully-formed as he’s gonna get, and watching the kid find pieces of himself like this, fitting together like a puzzle bursting with color—it’s made his heart clench stupidly more times than he can count.

Still, he has to swallow a lump in his throat that threatens to choke him at the thought of being a father figure to Jack. Dean knows—he _knows_ he didn’t make the best first impression with the kid ( _Yeah_ , he scoffs internally, _I bet that bullet sure woulda made an impression_ ), or second, or seventh; but as they got further from that point, and things started to get easier as they got their family back—first Cas, then Mom, and Jack himself coming back to them—it all locked into place. Sam, him, Cas, and Jack. They just fit.

Dean deliberately doesn’t think about the fact that Jack might never get the chance to figure out his feelings for other boys, in the end. He doesn’t think about it, like he doesn’t think about his own dad’s thoughts on the subject, or whether Sam and Cas have found anything to help with Jack’s problem—

God, but he wishes Sam and Cas were here now.

“So,” Dean clears his throat and gestures vaguely with his right hand, eyes front, “where to then? Since it’s a no-go on the bar.”

Jack smiles, more sedately now, at the road ahead. “I think you’ll like it.”

Dean leaves his hand resting on Jack’s shoulder, and lets the kid drive.

* * *

Turns out the kid wanted to take him fishing.

Fuck.

When Jack announced what he wanted to do, smiling proudly from the driver’s seat, Dean couldn’t keep his eyes from prickling a bit, had to pull out his phone as an excuse to look away. But if that’s what Jack wants to do with the—with the time he has left, then hell. They’d go fishing.

So, Dean found a website for a little place by the river that sold bait and rented out rods by the hour, and once they made a beer run they were casting by early afternoon.

It’s quietly sunny, the little nook where Jack (guided carefully by Dean) parked his Baby, offroad a bit and down by the water. There’s the distant sound of the highway, but they’re close enough to the river that the calming _whoosh_ of the rushing water drowns out almost all other noises, except for the odd birdsong here or there. They talk back and forth a bit, the two of them, but after that first conversation…

_It was your happiest memory of him._ Jack had said it with so much certainty. _It was how you said it… I could tell._

God. Dean hadn’t even known that, himself. But looking back…

He remembers that day like a movie, used to play it in his head when things got bad, with Dad. Dean was 11 maybe, or 12; Sammy was at a friend’s house (a rare occurrence, even back then), and there was no hunt on the immediate horizon for John to obsess over, so he took Dean out to a lake near the town where they were staying—Dean can’t even remember the state, now, but he still sees that little pier in his dreams, from time to time. Dean hardly spoke at all, that day. But his Dad, with a few comfortable beers in him by the afternoon, told him stories, all day long—about his old war buddies, about growing up in Kansas, about mom—stories he’d never heard before; happy ones. And damn, if John Winchester didn't know how to tell a story.

Since then, Dean’s found peace in fishing. Much as hunting gives him purpose, it can be nice—necessary, even—to have a day just to sit. Watch, listen. Be, for a while. He hasn’t had much opportunity in recent years, not with—well, pretty much everything about his life. But Dean’s always liked those small moments; moments where nothing’s expected of him ( _was it really his happiest memory of him?_ ), where he doesn’t have to be anything for anyone. Doesn’t have to say anything, unless he has something to say.

_(If Jack could tell that, just by how he said it—what else could he tell?)_

He grips the neck of his beer, takes a long pull of it. He thinks about Jack telling him that he thinks he’s _had a good life_. 

What kind of life? The kid’s barely been alive for two years, and half of that time he was fighting a war, used as a weapon—and God if that doesn’t send Dean’s head spinning, make him want to wrap the kid in his arms like the child he is. And he _is_ , even now. 

Dean glances sidelong at Jack, who’s squinting down at his lure where it bobs over the low waves, and is struck again by how _young_ he is. His first thought, on seeing the kid, that first night in the cabin, was that _this wasn’t a baby like they thought, no, this was a fully-grown thing—This was a threat. A monster._ He didn’t even consider that Jack _had_ to grow up that fast; that he was still, in every way that mattered, a newborn. He didn’t even think when he pulled that gun. All he could see, seared behind his eyes, was Cas—his _body_ , wings burned into the ground, limbs splayed awkwardly on the rough shore.

Dean has a lot of regrets—God knows he does—but all he can think now, looking at Jack searching the tumbling waters for fish, is that one of the worst things he did was have Jack’s first worldly experience be a gun trained at his head.

_“Shoot first, ask questions later.” “That’s my man.”_

He rubs one hand down his face now, all at once exhausted. At least the weather’s nice.

Suddenly, Jack pipes up from his perch. 

“I’ve been thinking, and—” He sits up a little straighter. “I think I do, actually.”

Dean realizes he zoned out while staring at Jack’s line, and refocuses on the kid’s face. “Hm?”

“Like boys.” His voice is clear, and it rings out across the river. “Or, men. Whatever. What’s that called again?” He has that curl of curiosity in his brow again, still staring down the line of his fishing rod.

Dean coughs. Looks down at his hands. “Uh, gay. It’s, uh, ‘gay’ for men. Women are called lesbians. And if it’s both, then it’s—”

“Bisexual, I remember that one!” Jack sounds excited. “Because ‘bi’ is like two, like a bicycle has two wheels. I was thinking about that, when you said it the first time. I think I’m a gay, though.”

Dean coughs, again. His neck feels hot. “It’s just ‘gay.’ You say, like, ‘I’m—’” He pauses, heart stuttering. “‘I’m gay,’ not, uh, ‘I’m a gay.’” He inhales through his nose. “Just. ‘I’m gay.’”

He lets out a long, slow breath.

“Oh!” Jack says, and Dean looks up from his hands to see the tiny smile that’s appeared on the kid’s face. “I’m gay, then.” He turns back to Dean, then, and beams like the sun. “I like saying that!”

Dean’s heart pounds in his chest. “I’m, uh. I’m glad, Jack. Thanks. Um. Thank you for telling me.”

“‘Course, Dean. Why wouldn’t I?” Jack’s turned back to his line, now, staring intently, as if he might miss a fish if he was looking away for another second. Dean keeps looking at Jack’s face in profile. 

He doesn’t know what’s going through Jack’s mind right now, but—God. The kid, he just up and—well, _came out_. To Dean, of all people. Granted, if the kid didn’t know what being gay _was,_ then he definitely didn’t understand the weight that a moment like that could hold. But Dean... his heart’s still racing. 

_Why wouldn't I?_

He can’t help thinking that he should’ve said more. About everything. The kinds of things that can happen to someone who’s—someone who—

But the kid’s dying. 

He doesn’t want him to worry any more than he already is. 

_It’s time together that matters_ , Jack had said, and damn if that ain’t true. Dean sits back on his rock by the river; knows his bones will ache for it tomorrow, but sits there all the same, watching. Being.

* * *

Dean drives them home.

He lets Jack pick the music (though it goes against his own age-old rule—but, hey, this can be the exception that proves it, alright?), and it’s worth it for the giddy delight on the kid’s face as he rifles through Dean’s decades-old cassettes, asking about each one. 

He listens, face open and eyes wide, as Dean explains the collection of mixtapes—this one for a girlfriend who broke it off before he ever got the chance to give it to her; this for driving up the east coast _only_ , not made for the midwest, no, he can’t play it here; this for summertime joyrides; this one, which cried _ON THE RUN_ in all-caps, was Sammy’s one-time favorite, and had some of the angriest, angstiest songs possible to feed his brother’s 90s teen heart.

In the end, though, Jack sits back, says, “I like the songs we were listening to before. Can we put that one back in?” He says it like he can tell—and maybe he can, the kid’s proven he can pick up on these things—that it’s one of his favorites, without Dean even having to say it. The tape picks up right where they left off, and Jack smiles at the road as he nods along to the instrumental track, bouncing one leg up and down against the passenger side door.

Dean looks at him out of the corner of his eye. God, the kid looks just like Cas sometimes. It’s almost like Jack knew who his real dad was, angel genetics be damned (or however it is that works), when he blazed into the world all those months ago. A picture comes unbidden to Dean’s mind then of Jack, absolutely swimming in a familiar trenchcoat wrapped tight around his shoulders, hair all mussed up in the sterile hospital light—and he shoves the image back down. He focuses on Jack here, now, in the passenger seat of Dean’s car. That tiny little smile, and those eyes squinting in the setting sun... it's got _Cas_ written all over. Dean drinks in the sight and his heart takes a moment to seize up again. He ignores it.

They listen as they drive, a comfortable silence between them, windows now drawn up—sometimes, Jack had told him a while ago, the sound of the wind coming through the windows of the car is too much, and so's the feeling of the air on his face and hair. So when Jack quietly rolled his window the rest of the way up, early on the drive back, Dean did, too. 

Dean nearly jumps, then, as he feels his phone buzz between his back pocket and the bench. He reaches back, expecting Sam with an update on the research, and blinks at the phone when he realizes it’s Cas calling. 

No, wait. It’s Cas, but his phone tells him it’s a request to video call. 

Huh. They never do that.

Dean passes the phone to Jack. “D’you mind picking this up? Looks like Cas wants to talk face-to-face.” He carefully doesn’t think about what news Cas could have that would warrant a video call. Jack nods and arranges the phone so it’s facing Dean’s direction, with Jack to one side, and picks up the call.

“Hello, Dean.” Dean’s turned back to the road by now, and Cas’ voice comes from Dean’s right. He’s startled by Jack giggling, and when Dean looks at the phone he sees—Dean has to stifle a laugh at the sight—what must be Cas’ ear, pressed up against the front camera of his cell phone. Jack lets out another helpless giggle, and Cas’ ear moves a little on the screen. “Oh, is Jack there, too? Do you have me on speaker phone?”

Dean laughs outright at this, and Jack cracks up beside him. Eyes on the road again, Dean says, “Looks like you hit ‘video call’ on accident there, buddy.”

He looks back over just in time to see Cas pull the phone away from his ear and squint down at the screen. He holds the phone back up so that the camera captures his face, angled straight on, and Dean has to turn back to the road, breath suddenly caught in his chest.

“Sorry,” Cas sounds flustered, “I’ll just—call you back—”

“No!” Jack interrupts him, and out of the corner of his eye Dean sees Jack turn the phone toward his own face. “We never talk on the phone like this! I like seeing you, Cas!”

“Oh.” Cas says it softly. “Okay. We can continue. If it’s alright with Dean—it’s his phone.”

Dean looks over to where Jack has the camera turned on Dean, just Dean. “Nah, this is fine.” He gives Cas a wink and then turns back to the road. Feels his face heat up, like an afterthought. He stares hard at the horizon and grips the wheel, silently willing the heat to go down, and hoping to God it doesn’t show on camera.

“I think I may have found a solution,” Cas says, his voice heavy with relief. Right, there was a point to this call. Obviously. “A spell. I want to consult Rowena before we try anything, but…” He pauses. “I think it just might work.”

Dean feels a grin threatening to split across his face, and he swallows it in favor of a smaller smile. He looks back to where Jack still has the phone pointed in his direction, and sees Cas looking back at them, eyes shining with hope. Dean turns back to the road, swallowing around the thick feeling caught in his throat again.

Jack has a small shine of hope on his face, too, and—God, it’s like his face was made for optimism, because even that tentative look glows in the golden hour sun. “Thank you so much for doing this, Cas.”

“Of course,” Cas says. “Anything.” The way he says it, serious like a heart attack, Dean can tell he means it, with every fiber in him. “So, where did the two of you go?”

That sets Jack off. “Cas, I can _drive!_ Dean taught me how! We got burgers and he taught me how to _drive_ , and I was _driving_ , and then we went fishing!” He’s almost bouncing in his seat, and suddenly it’s like any and all evidence of the resignation that was etched into his face earlier that morning has completely faded away.

“Oh? And how was that?” Cas’ voice is gentle. Dean glances back at the phone in Jack’s hand to find the camera still trained on Dean, and Cas is—he’s looking at Dean. There’s nothing else he could be looking at, with Dean as the sole focus of the phone’s camera. The look on Cas’ face though, it’s one that Dean hasn’t seen in a long time, except when it’s directed at Jack. He looks soft, in that way that suits him—he’s in the bunker’s kitchen, Dean thinks, recognizing the way he’s haloed by light, eyes squinting with warmth. He looks soft.

“It was so good! I caught one fish, and then I let it go again.” Jack adjusts the phone so he and Dean are both in frame. “And then—oh, wait, Cas, guess what!”

“What?” Cas asks, attentive as ever.

“Dean told me I’m gay!” Jack turns around to look at Dean, still holding the phone out, and smiles. Dean starts, looks at Jack, then the phone, where Cas is frozen with a look of confusion on his face. 

_God_ , Dean thinks, _he gets the same little wrinkle as Jack, right there..._

“Dean… told you…” Cas says, trying to work through that sentence in his head. Dean feels himself tense up, ready to explain—

“Yeah!” Jack turns the full force of his sunbeam smile back at Cas, who just—dissolves, like he always does when that smile shines on him. _God, he’s such a dad_. Dean’s heart does a stupid little two-step. _Shut up_. 

“Dean said maybe we could go to a bar and talk to some girls—” At this, Cas looks back at Dean, accusing, from where his gaze was focused on Jack. Dean turns back to the road, and scratches the back of his neck, still warm. “—and I told Dean that I don’t think I like girls, actually, and he told me that’s called being gay, and he told me I don’t have to know right now if I am gay or not, and then I thought about it a lot when we were fishing—fishing’s really good for thinking, did you know that?—and I realized that I think that I like boys more than I like girls, which I don’t think I do, at all, so I think I’m gay.” He stops rambling and grins at Cas again, in all his gap-toothed glory.

“That’s wonderful, Jack,” Cas says, a slow rumble of an affirmation. When Cas talks like that, there’s no room for any kind of disagreement. It _is_ wonderful. “Thank you so much for telling me.” His voice sounds even more rough than normal, at those words.

Dean lets out a breath.

Cas is—he’s just so good at the whole... Parent thing. Since he met Jack—since Jack came up to him, first time they saw each other in the flesh, and told him _I missed you so much_ —the paternal side of him just seemed to bloom, natural as anything. 

So Cas saying what he said, thanking Jack just now—Dean had said that too, when Jack told him. It makes Dean feel like he finally, finally did something right by the kid. 

It felt right.

“Also, I found a _really_ cool-looking rock, I can’t wait for you to see it. It has, like, twelve different colors in it, it's _so_ cool,” Jack’s still rambling on at Cas from Dean’s phone. He has it turned on himself now, but Dean can still see Cas’ face—so attentive, so tender and open, and it makes him want to—it makes him—

He squeezes the wheel with both hands. 

Dean lets their voices wash over him after Cas’ suitably interested reply, and looks back out at the road. He doesn’t want to crash the car, after all, especially not now that there might be hope for Jack. Dean allows himself a tentative moment of hope, as his ears tune into the buzz of the cassette, flooding the car lowly with one of Dean’s favorite tracks—

_Then, as it was, then again it will be… and though the course may change, sometimes, rivers always reach the sea…_

Dean lets himself glance at the passenger side, where Jack now has both of them captured in the phone’s screen again. He blinks at where they’re both now staring at him ( _same eyes_ ), and he realizes that Jack must’ve just asked him a question. He burns this moment into his mind, though, the same look on both their faces—one in the passenger seat and one one a phone screen, but both with the same wide-open stare.

“What’s that?” He turns back toward the road, but keeps his ears open this time. 

Jack pipes up from his left again. “I was just wondering if you could make something for dinner, when we get back home? And if I could help?”

Dean squeezes the wheel again, staring hard at the yellow line where it stretches out in front of them. “Sure thing, kid.” He looks over, where both their eyes are still trained on him. “How d’you feel about tomato rice soup?”

He turns back to the road, again, and doesn’t think about how his mom isn’t answering his calls.

“That sounds _amazing_.” Dean can hear the smile in Jack’s voice. 

From the phone, Cas says, “I can pick up the ingredients, Dean.”

“Sounds good, Cas,” Dean says, “...but you are _not_ coming near the stove till it’s done.” Dean shudders, remembering the last time Cas tried to help out in the kitchen— _not_ a pretty sight, no sir.

“I know, Dean.” He looks over at the phone where Jack’s turned it toward him. Cas has that soft look about him, again. 

Dean swallows, turns back to the road. “Alright. Soup, then spell.” He looks back at Cas out of the corner of his eye, squinting in the setting sun. “We’ll see you at home, Cas.”

Cas nods, gracing them with that tiny smile. “See you.”

Jack turns the phone back to his own smiling face. “See you soon, Cas! Thank you for calling!”

Cas’ voice comes out of the phone, gentle but firm. “Of course, Jack. I always enjoy talking to you. And thank you again for telling me—what you told me.” Dean can still hear the smile in his voice. “Goodbye. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye Cas!”

Jack fiddles with Dean’s phone in his lap for a few moments, after they’ve hung up. Dean’s about to reach for it back, when Jack asks, quietly, “Hey, how come both of you thanked me? When I told you that I think I’m gay?”

Dean blinks at the road. Taps his finger on the wheel as he thinks for a moment. He breathes out, long and slow. “It’s just kinda—what you say. When someone—when they trust you enough to tell you. It’s kinda—I mean.” He stops. Squints at the horizon. “It’s kinda a big part of who you are, for a lot of people. An important part. And—like I said, it takes some people a long time to—to figure it out. So it can be a big deal, sort of, when they—when they finally tell people.”

Jesus. He scratches the back of his neck.

Jack nods. “That makes sense.” Dean’s still staring hard at the road, but he can tell that Jack is looking at him, now. 

Again, he wonders what else the kid can tell, just from the way Dean says things. Wonders what else he's already told the kid, not even realizing he told him.

Dean puts his right hand on Jack’s shoulder, then, grips it tight. Baby’s all alone on this stretch of highway, so he feels alright about it when he turns to face Jack. “It’s gonna be fine, kid.” He holds eye contact with him for the long side of a second, then turns his eyes back on the road. He holds onto Jack’s shoulder, and he feels the kid relax under his hand.

It’s gonna be fine.


End file.
